Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Battle for Vaccination – It Does Not Only Impact YOUR Kids

The Battle for Vaccination – It Does Not Only
Impact YOUR Kids

This recent NPR reported
highlighted the complexities and challenging dynamics of childhood vaccination;
furthermore, it truly emphasized just how personal
vaccination policy is for families in our country.

The article began by
highlighting the story of the Moore family, hailing from Austin, Texas – about six
years ago, 10 year old Georgia Moore was diagnosed with leukemia. As cancer
treatment requires chemotherapy, Georgia’s immune system was very vulnerable;
therefore, while she did not attend school, her parents were afraid that her younger
sister, Ivy, attending school might carry
back dangerous diseases to Georgia. The Moore family was particularly wary of
this threat of infectious diseases, as Texas (along with 18 other US states)
allows nonmedical exceptions from vaccination requirements. Children lacking vaccination have a much
higher probably of being infected with, and in turn transmitting, infectious
disease – thisof possibility
transmission is even more threatening for children like Georgia who had a lowered
immune system.

Luckily, Georgia was not
required to receive extensive chemotherapy treatment, and is successfully
cancer free today!! However, since then, her mom, Courtney Moore, has become a
leader in the Texas vaccination debate, advocating for the removal of the law
allowing non medical vaccination exemptions.One of Moore’s core arguments is that by not vaccinating one’s child,
they are putting the entire population at risk.

This article continued to
site some interesting statistics regardingvaccination exemptions – I was surprised to learn that the number of
“conscientious exemptions” in Texas increased from 2,314 in 2003 to 44,716 now!
It shocked me how many children are vaccinated and that this number is GROWING!
I was even more astounded to learn that unvaccinated children come from areas
where families are highly educated and higher-income. This surprised me, as one
of the primary reasons why people don’t vaccinate their kids is because of false linkage to vaccines causing
autism – I would have thought that more educated families would have realized
that these studies linking the two were debunked. I wonder what are some was to
transform the narrative and dialogue regarding vaccination

A final particularly
interesting component of this study was the discussion of the “clusters”of
unvaccinated children. For instance,while Texas itself has 98% of children vaccinated, at the Austin Waldorf
School (a private school costing over $13,000 annually), more than 40% of kids
are unvaccinated! This completely destroys the idea of “herd immunity.” While
there is not data regarding unvaccinated kids in individual public schools,
many parents are advocating for such information to b public so that parents
can be aware of risks that their children face.